ANSWERING D Darroch's letter (Sept 25). I understand and sympathise with D Darroch's concerns and fears that he expresses over "freedom of speech", but I don't believe limiting freedom of speech will stop those who are determined. If you don't listen to all sides, then you could stop the good ideology being heard in your eagerness to stop the bad.
D Darroch talks of an "old gentleman" and that he said freedom of speech allowed the Nazis to come to power and that free speech was the first casualty, and I would not disagree. But that isn't the first time freedom of speech has been a casualty.
I remember someone telling me about a young man whose freedom of speech was taken away from him. He was a 33-year-old Jewish man who came from a place called Nazareth in Palestine -- now Israel. he had a good ideology. So good, it changed the lives of millions, but some of his fellow countrymen, also Jewish, did not think so. They thought he was a troublemaker. He was told to stop speaking out and, when he wouldn't, his fellow countrymen had him arrested and charged with sedition.
That young man paid for freedom of speech with his life at a place called Calvary and his followers were persecuted, all because he used freedom of speech to tell of the God he believed in and the ideology which later became Christendom. The very ideology that helped get the Nazis out of power. He spoke about peace and good will to all men and, with his dying breath, he said: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
What does D Darroch think of people who would do that to a man whose only crime was to love his God and fellow man? If freedom of speech is limited, how do you combat a bad ideology if it goes underground? You can only defeat a bad idea by coming up with a better idea -- and you need freedom of speech to get that idea across.
Grenville Moore
Iris Avenue,
Harper Green,
Farnworth, Bolton
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